Not to be taken seriously?
I have a rather mixed opinion about Captivity. Viewed seriously, it is an awful movie. Elisha Cuthbert plays a model who is drugged, kidnapped, held prisoner and tortured by an unknown assailant. During the first portion of the movie, she is essentially the only character, and she is not a very interesting one. For a long time, we know little about her - and nothing of the motivations of her captor - so it is hard to care about her on anything but the most basic level. Eventually, another prisoner appears, and then the plot twists begin; the only problem is that every twist can be seen coming long before it happens. And considering how "brilliant" the villain is, he leaves a relatively obvious trail for the police to at least suspect him.
On the other hand, while watching Captivity, I began to wonder if it is really just a parody of the so-called "torture porn" genre which has the Saw and Hostel movies as its most prominent members. After all, this movie takes...
What's real?
A beautiful model seems to have everything...money, fame, a dog. That changes when she's abducted in the middle of a lively club. She wakes up to find she's in a prison of sorts and subjected to horredous acts. Thus is the plot behind Captivity.
Lets be blunt shall we? I bought this because I think Elisha Cuthbert is an amazing talent. Yet somehow, even she couldn't save this film from being sadly predictable with characters as wooden as your dining room table. Jennifer (Elisha's character) has absolutely no backstory, you see her in a photo shoot so you kind of put two and two together to come up with the fact that she's a model. You realize she has a dog that she treats like a human. And, honestly, seems like a genuinely lonely person to me. But it doesn't take more than 15 minutes before she gets taken and the torture begins. With the film moving so swiftly I had no reason to care whether she lived or died.
The acting, on everyone's part, was terrible...like...
Movies Like This Can Be Torture
I'm shocked and appalled that I actually found something redeeming about "Captivity," if only at first. This is an ugly film, parts of which are as sick, depraved, and disgusting as an R rated movie is allowed to be. Of course, I knew all along that it was supposed to be that way, which is probably why that aspect didn't bother me. The first half of the film is actually quite strong, simply because no effort was put into character development, dialogue, or even plot; it was all about shocking the audience with gruesome scenes of torture and gore. It certainly worked in that regard. But then it completely lost its way, first when the characters were fleshed out, second when a back-story was alluded to. Both were beyond ridiculous, downright unnecessary. Had the filmmakers stuck to their original idea, had they not given the film an actual story and just focused on shock value, it probably would have been much more effective.
The plot concerns the plight of a young...
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